BYOD Policies are Becoming the Norm

So you've made the decision to allow your employees to bring their personal devices to work. You're in the majority! According to Honeywell, embracing this policy is a "win-win proposition."

The upside of a BYOD policy is twofold. User's are familiar with their own devices and productivity typically increases, as little to no education is required to get up and running and device acquisition costs are lower.

The downside, and it's a big one, can be comprised security if an IT policy specific to personal devices, is not put in place.

BYOD Security

The following is an except from an Application Brief recently published by Honeywell, discussing what a BYOD policy does in terms of IT security for your company.

"To keep your organization and its data safe, consider just a few of the many problems that a BYOD policy can help you mitigate:

A system for registering devices has to be in place; otherwise, unsecured devices might compromise your network.

Ultimately, users will be responsible for following the rules of securing their devices. You’ll have to monitor and enforce compliance.

Without proper safeguards, users might lose or unknowingly compromise your sensitive data, or they may introduce viruses that spread across your network.

You’ll need ways to prevent users from removing security controls or copying sensitive data from email, calendar and contact applications to other applications on the device or to another unregistered device."

Sage advice! Included in the application brief from Honeywell is a template for creating a BYOD policy for your organization. Read the full brief.